A 10-strong life sciences patent litigation team led by highly regarded Siegmund (Sige) Gutman has defected over from Proskauer Rose to Mintz Levin Cohn Ferris Glovsky and Popeo.

The team includes one former Proskauer partner – Los Angeles-based Gutman – and one former counsel, David Hanna. Both are joining as members at their new firm. The attorneys are spread between Los Angeles, Boston and New York as the US firm seeks to bolster its IP practice nationally.

Gutman will serve chair of life sciences litigation and co-chair of patent litigation and represents life sciences clients before trial and appellate courts as well as arbitration panels. His practice focuses on developing and executing market exclusivity and freedom-to-operate strategies, including patent office and FDA regulatory strategies for leading biologics, pharmaceutical, biotechnology and medical device clients.

He spent more than 10 years at New York-headquartered Proskauer Rose and before that was a partner at DLA Piper.

Bob Bodian, managing member of Mintz, said of Gutman that his “practice complements perfectly our life sciences transactional and patent prosecution practices, as well as our high-tech IP litigation practice”.

Hanna focuses on biologic drug patent and Hatch-Waxman patent litigation. His biologics drug patent litigation experience includes litigating matters relating to the blockbuster drugs Stelara, Avastin, and Herceptin.

Michael T Renaud, chair of the intellectual property division at Mintz, said the group’s “scientific credentials and winning litigation record have earned the trust of the world’s leading life sciences companies”.

Gutman said: “Life sciences and IP are top priorities at Mintz, which makes it an ideal place for our team to thrive long term.”

As part of its plans to grow its IP team, Mintz also last month hired trademark litigator Laura Franco to its IP practice group in its San Francisco office. Franco was previously at Winston & Strawn.

The US firm currently has seven offices in the US – Washington DC, San Diego, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Boston, New York and Miami. Last year it made its first move away from the US, opening up an office in Toronto.